Taking Stock In My Sick and Insane Life

Hello, my Lovelies!

It's been awhile since I've blogged, but I've been super/crazy busy. I'm still at the j.o.b. that pays the bills. I mentioned before that I pulled myself off the events schedule at work, but at my last evaluation, my supervisor told me that I needed to do at least one event or do a dealer visit. It's not that I don't like our dealers, but I'd rather not spend an entire day or two or three driving to different dealerships and exploring them in my cheetah pumps with my nails and make up did. If my Field DSM in Misery, er, Missouri will be in St. Louis the week of my vacation, then I'll go and hang with him and do a visit. But for now, I have chosen to go back to Alabama and the Magic City Classic. It's an HBCU event and I really enjoyed my time there with the awesome peeps of Birmingham. 

We (the Crew) always say we'll go and paint the town red, hang out with one of the auto coordinators, and really get a good look at B-ham.  You know, club scene, civil rights tour, find out where the cute guys are hanging, blah blah blah...

You know what ends up happening?  Dinner, followed by a long night's sleep because the next day is going to be 7:00am to 3:00pm on our feet, then a three hour drive back to home base in Alpharetta. There's no chill whatsoever. 

The difference here is the day of the Classic is October 31. That's Halloween.  My favorite holiday EVER!!! I'm going to wear some kind of costume; I'm on the bubble as to what. I have to be mindful that just because it's October doesn't mean that it doesn't get hot in B-Ham...cuz it does...and we roast. They import that sun from hell's basement or something. Oh, the costume - maybe something ironic like angel wings. Whatever I choose to wear, it won't be a full one and besides, I won't tell my site manager until I'm there. I'm going to have to be all "Mission: Impossible" about it and not tell him what I'm planning. It's only because he's a true Christian.

(taking the needle off the rekkid time) Let me explain. Yall know me by now.

Most people, and I mean a lot of people, love to say that they're christians (lowercase "c") especially when they're being low down, dirty, lying, cheating, stinkin' stankin' stoinkin', cursing, abusing, fornicating, drugging, clubbing, and in general being something you wouldn't speak to in broad daylight, much less invite to your mom's house. Not that I think that there's anything wrong with, uh some of these things (cursing...I really like cursing...I'm really good at it), but you know how it is. At the first chance they get to "not judge because God says judge not lest he be judged," they proudly announce that they don't judge people like R Kelly or Bill Cosby.

[sarcasm]You know, cuz there's no such thing as dirty money as long as the person writes music about soaring through open doors or make you laugh while wearing a technicolor sweater and sucking on a pudding pop. That pissy/druggy/rapey thingy is so 1979.[/sarcasm]

They will then promptly inform you that you're going to hell in a hand basket and wearing gasoline drawers in the process, and the devil will do all sorts of horrible things to your dead, nekkid body. Finally, they go to church to pray away the stench of ugliness, and leave at the end of service to go and do the same things that they tried to pray away.

Facebook has quite a few of these fakestians - "read your bible" type of lunatics who always have a bible verse to quote their every situation. Of course, we're supposed to ignore the nekkid booty pictures in their photo albums and the ratchet World Star videos that they post, but they'll tell you do as they say, not as they do. No, my site manager truly walks in the light of Christ. I've observed this in two others, who speak of their faith with such love and reverence that it will melt your heart. It's about the love of God with them, not the damnation. If I dare say it, there are three Christians (capital "C") on this Earth that, if I was left alone in a room with them, they could persuade me back into the faith. My friend Neicy is one. Yolanda Adams is another, and I dare say that my site manager could be the third one.

I hope he doesn't read my blog.

Anyhoo, we'll go and have an incredible time and enjoy the crowd before the Classic starts.  I was actually torn when I pulled myself off the schedule. You see, I wanted to focus on my burgeoning writing career, so doing events for my company was going to be a bit much for me. I have a heart condition, and there were other factors, so I figured that if I was going to do any touring, I would prefer to promote my writing career. I met up with some awesome Black Speculative Fiction and Steamfunk authors, Milton Davis, Jeff Carroll, Balogun Ojetade, and Gerald Coleman and had a great time. I think that my choice was the right one and it's starting to pay off for me. Milton has asked me to sit on panel at DragonCon this year, and I'm still too stunned to even really feel it yet. I'm writing "When You Die, You Go To Mississippi" so that I can read it there. I'm very humbled and grateful for the opportunity to show the literary world what I have to bring to it.

I'm exhausted, on edge, and stressed out more than I have been in ages. I'm working very hard to eliminate the stress in my life and not doing a good job of it. I got stalked, I reconnected with some old friends from back home, didn't lose much weight, and I had this weird recurring dream about ice and gummi vitamins. 

However, today is a good day. To have finally gotten my trilogy completed has been a monumental accomplishment. I didn't go into it to make money. It would be too much and too fast for me to be successful straight from the gate. It would have been nice, but I think it's best that I work my way through and earn it. If it doesn't work, then it's not meant to be. If it does, I'll appreciate it more. You're never too old or too dead to have a second chance to do what you love to do. The final installment of the "Kurai Utopia" trilogy, "The Other Side of Time," is now available on Amazon, and the feeling of accomplishment is something that I can't describe. I'll do a separate blog to announce the book and give the credits due.

I want to jump up and down for joy, but I actually don't have the luxury of doing that. I have to get started on Mississippi and the Immortal Anthology series. I have a lot to do this summer, and since Kurai Utopia is completed, it's time for me to move forward. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get any other projects off the ground until I finished.  I had so much to do this weekend, including going to Fayetteville to hear Milton give a workshop on self-publishing, but my mom wanted me to run to Athens to pick up some things before the trip back home next weekend, and the time just escaped me. By escaping, I mean I stopped at an outlet mall for some sandals and ended up buying two outfits to match it. By the time I got back to Alpharetta, I was late picking Charlene up from the park ride lot where she waits for me on the weekend. You see, where we live there is no bus service on the weekends, which is about a mile from the park ride lot, so I drive her to work on Saturday/Sunday mornings.  Unless it's raining, she takes the bus to the park ride lot and I pick her up at around 3:45. It was about 4:10 when I finally got there. She was kinda huffy about it, too. Truth be told, it was about 99 degrees at the park ride lot, though.

I wanted to say something to the effect that she should use sunscreen when standing outside in the blazing heat, but that would have been mean. I bought her a Frap instead.

This is the part where I stop and thank everyone who supported me. Right now, I want to stop and revel in the fact that I did this, with very little help, no editor except my daughter on the second book, no designer until the last book, and while I didn't do a perfect job (I had to reedit several times), I think I did okay. All things considering, it's been horrible. The stress drove me insane...as if I need a jet engine ride to the crazy house. No, it'll be awhile before I can actually sit down and revel in the fact that I completed this trilogy. Time waits for no one; it's off to the next endeavors.

People keep telling me to hire them when I become famous. If you're not an editor, you can forget it, buster! I'm never EVER editing a project as big as Kurai ever again! 

The truest measure of my success will be if my stalker eventually sticks a knife in my back, and then I'll sell over 10 million copies. That would truly suck; me being a monumental success and too damn dead to enjoy it. Just in case, Charlene has my final wishes of taking my ashes to Europe, pouring Absinthe into my urn and bringing me back to St. Louis, where she can dump my ashes in the Mississippi River.

Yeah sure - you're laughing now, but that stalking broad is psychotic enough to do it. Okay, I'm laughing too! I wish a bitch would...

Anyhoo, my lovelies - I just wanted to touch base to say I'm still here. You have to catch me on Twitter or my Official Facebook page to chat with me, or on Pinterest and Instagram. My life is insane right now, and I'm loving it!

I really hope my site manager doesn't read my blog.

~Me~